. Harriet's faults were her own.

"She has always been showy," said Mrs. Hackbutt, making tea for a small
party, "though she has got into the way of putting her religion
forward, to conform to her husband; she has tried to hold her head up
above Middlemarch by making it known that she invites clergymen and
heaven-knows-who from Riverston and those places."

"We can hardly blame her for that," said Mrs. Sprague; "because few of
the best people in the town cared to associate with Balstrode, and she
must have somebody to sit down at her table."

"Mr. Thesiger has always countenanced him," said Mrs. Hackbutt. "I
think he must be sorry now."

"But he was never fond of him in his heart--that every one knows," said
Mrs. Tom Toller. "Mr. Thesiger never goes into extremes. He keeps to
the truth in what is evangelical. It is only clergymen like Mr. Tyke,
who want to use Dissenting hymn-books and that low kind of religion,
who ever found Bulstrode to their taste."

"I understand, Mr. Tyke is in great distress about him," said Mrs.
Hackbutt. "And well he may be: they say the Bulstrodes have half kept
the Tyke family."

"And of coarse it is a discredit to his doctrines," said Mrs. Sprague,
who was elderly, and old-fashioned in her opinions.

"People will not make a boast of being methodistical in Middlemarch for
a good while to come."

"I think we must not set down people's bad actions to their religion,"
said falcon-faced Mrs. Plymdale, who had been listening hitherto.

"Oh, my dear, we are forgetting," said Mrs. Sprague. "We ought not to
be talking of this before you."

"I am sure I have no reason to be partial," said Mrs. Plymdale,
coloring. "It's true Mr. Plymdale has always been on good terms with
Mr. Bulstrode, and Harriet Vincy was my friend long before she married
him. But I have always kept my own opinions and told her where she was
wrong, poor thing. Still, in point of religion, I must say, Mr.
Bulstrode might have done what he has, and worse, and yet have been a
man of no religion. I don't say that there has not been a little too
much of that--I like moderation myself. But truth is truth. The men
tried at the assizes are not all over-religious, I suppose."

"Well," said Mrs. Hackbutt, wheeling adroitly, "all I can say is, that
I think she ought to separate from him."

"I can't say that," said Mrs. Sprague. "She took him for better or
worse, you know."

"But 'worse' can never mean finding out